BLOG | The Odyssey Files #1: “ ‘A complicated man’ … and complicated myths” by Professor Kathryn Morgan
Watching the reaction to and discussion of Christopher Nolan’s film version of the Odyssey has been fascinating. As someone who teaches classical mythology on a regular basis, I am sympathetic to the need to change an ancient myth to tell the story one wants to tell and make the points one wants to make. After all, this was the fate of the myth of Odysseus throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Greek tragedy could turn Odysseus into a cynical and manipulative demagogue (as in Euripides’ Hecuba), or into a deceiver and a corrupter of young people (Sophocles’ Philoctetes). Intellectuals of the late fifth century played upon his status as a skilled orator. Homer’ Odyssey, as well as lost poems in the same tradition, was a lasting inspiration and challenge to those who came after, and Homer’s successors did not hesitate to change aspects of the story whenever they felt like it.
One particular aspect of the film that has been suggestive for me is the portrayal of Odysseus as someone suffering from PTSD. One might think that this was the last thing any ancient author would have seen in the Odyssey. But this characterization finds a surprising echo in the writing of an author from the early fourth century BCE who is one of my research interests: the philosopher Plato. Like many educated Athenians, Plato (as well as his teacher, Socrates, who is the major character in many of his philosophical dialogues) could and did quote Homer in support of points they made in every day conversation. It’s no surprise, then, that Plato can portray Socrates quoting Odysseus approvingly, as when he says in the Republic that Odysseus’ self-admonition “Endure my heart! You have suffered things more shameless than this! (Od. 20.18), is a good model of self-control (Rep. 3.390d). Plato was also interested in Odysseus as a skilled speaker and thus as a model for an orator, and also as a test case for the ethics of deception. But the passage that interests me most at the moment comes from the end of Republic, when Socrates tells a myth of the afterlife in which souls are punished or rewarded for their good or bad deeds during life and then undergo process of reincarnation. The myth illustrates the importance of self-knowledge and thoughtfulness, since when the soul is about to be reincarnated it has some choice over the kind of life it will live. Choosing that life well is crucial for future happiness. The myth illustrates this process by recounting the choices of some famous figures from mythology (Rep. 10.620). Agamemnon chooses to be an eagle in his next incarnation “because of his sufferings, thorough hatred of the human race” (remember that he is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra as soon as he returns from Troy). The hero Ajax opts to become a lion, unwilling to be a human again because of his resentment at not being chosen to receive the arms of Achilles after Achilles’ death (Odysseus was awarded them instead, and Ajax ends up committing suicide). Odysseus chooses last, and “because he remembered his previous toils he gave up on ambition and sought the life of a private citizen who minded his own business.” He chooses this life joyfully, and says that this is the life he would have picked even if he had chosen first.
This entire scene in the Republic is haunted by the trauma of these Trojan War heroes. The experiences of Ajax and Agamemnon have caused them to reject humanity altogether and choose future lives as animals—perhaps a comment on the psychological injury caused by the Trojan War and its aftermath, the relentless drive to win and to be the best coupled with the suffering (one’s own and that of others) that results. Odysseus is a more interesting case because he is a broader thinker and a more thoughtful one. Neither Agamemnon or Ajax has learned anything. Odysseus, on the other hand, realizes that the problem is in the system, the ambition that causes one to live life without careful consideration of the consequences. He wants a life of relative obscurity because this is the life that will give him the best chance of making it through his next existence morally unscathed, and perhaps even (from Plato’s point of view) with the thoughtful self-awareness that is the beginning of philosophy. In Nolan’s Odyssey, Odysseus goes into exile at the end (with Penelope—a very un-Platonic touch!) because of his slaughter of the suitors. He doesn’t mind this, and it is clear that the structures of conquest, deception, and domination in which he has participated now seem to him dangerous and problematic. He wants a quiet life. There is something in common with Plato here. Plato does not give us an Odysseus with PTSD as such, but he does give us one who questions and rejects the cultural structures within which he has operated. The Republic has a lot to say about the corrosive effects of power and ambition on the individual soul as well as about the way these characteristics connect with greed and the desire for money. This is the trajectory that leads to the horrendous figure of the tyrant in the dialogue, the ruler who holds nothing sacred and who will reject no immoral act if it leads to his own victory. These moral dangers were as present in antiquity as they are today, and it is thought-provoking to see Nolan and Plato (in their different ways) feature a hero whose suffering and endurance (Homer’s Odysseus is “much-enduring,” and we have seen how Plato picks up on the importance of endurance) enable him to rethink the way he interacts with the world.
Further reading: Sylvia Montiglio, From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought (Ann Arbor, 2011).